Pause Length and Differences in Cognitive State Attribution in Native and Non-Native Speakers

Speech pauses between turns of conversations are crucial for assessing conversation partners’ cognitive states, such as their knowledge, confidence and willingness to grant requests; in general, speakers making longer pauses are regarded as less apt and willing. However, it is unclear if the interpretation of pause length is mediated by the accent of interactants, in particular native versus non-native accents. We hypothesized that native listeners are more tolerant towards long pauses made by non-native speakers than those made by native speakers. This is because, in non-native speakers, long pauses might be the result of prolonged cognitive processing when planning an answer in a non-native language rather than of a lack of knowledge, confidence or willingness. Our experiment, in which 100 native Polish-speaking raters rated native and non-native speakers of Polish on their knowledge, confidence and willingness, showed that this hypothesis was confirmed for perceived willingness only; non-native speakers were regarded as equally willing to grant requests, irrespective of their inter-turn pause durations, whereas native speakers making long pauses were regarded as less willing than those making short pauses. For knowledge and confidence, we did not find a mediating effect of accent; both native and non-native speakers were rated as less knowledgeable and confident when making long pauses. One possible reason for the difference between our findings on perceived willingness to grant requests versus perceived knowledge and confidence is that requests might be more socially engaging and more directly relevant for interpersonal cooperative interactions than knowledge that reflects on partners’ competence but not cooperativeness. Overall, our study shows that (non-)native accents can influence which cognitive states are signaled by different pause durations, which may have important implications for intercultural communication settings where topics are negotiated between native and non-native speakers

Pause Length and Differences in Cognitive State Attribution in Native and Non-Native Speakers

Speech pauses between turns of conversations are crucial for assessing conversation partners’ cognitive states, such as their knowledge, confidence and willingness to grant requests; in general, speakers making longer pauses are regarded as less apt and willing. However, it is unclear if the interpretation of pause length is mediated by the accent of interactants, in particular native versus non-native accents. We hypothesized that native listeners are more tolerant towards long pauses made by non-native speakers than those made by native speakers. This is because, in non-native speakers, long pauses might be the result of prolonged cognitive processing when planning an answer in a non-native language rather than of a lack of knowledge, confidence or willingness. Our experiment, in which 100 native Polish-speaking raters rated native and non-native speakers of Polish on their knowledge, confidence and willingness, showed that this hypothesis was confirmed for perceived willingness only; non-native speakers were regarded as equally willing to grant requests, irrespective of their inter-turn pause durations, whereas native speakers making long pauses were regarded as less willing than those making short pauses. For knowledge and confidence, we did not find a mediating effect of accent; both native and non-native speakers were rated as less knowledgeable and confident when making long pauses. One possible reason for the difference between our findings on perceived willingness to grant requests versus perceived knowledge and confidence is that requests might be more socially engaging and more directly relevant for interpersonal cooperative interactions than knowledge that reflects on partners’ competence but not cooperativeness. Overall, our study shows that (non-)native accents can influence which cognitive states are signaled by different pause durations, which may have important implications for intercultural communication settings where topics are negotiated between native and non-native speakers

The Power of Linguistic Similarity for Unlocking Cooperation - Evidence from Syntax and Pitch Experiments

How can we judge if conversation partners will be good cooperation partners in other tasks? A recent proposal is that low-level linguistic similarity such as subconsciously matching others’ language use may be a signal of cooperativeness. To elucidate the mechanisms behind this relationship, we conducted two experiments, in which we found that conversation partners that matched the participants’ syntax and pitch were perceived as more cooperative and were chosen more often as cooperation partners. Our findings further suggest that the sheer act of adapting to someone’s linguistic production was not as crucial for choosing cooperation partners, even if it involved an initial cognitive investment. Rather, the decisive factor was sharing someone’s linguistic preferences and thereby indicating group membership. This may have important implications for understanding cooperation partner choice and for understanding the (co-)evolution of language and cooperation, which both are traits that are particularly prominent in humans

The effect of aesthetic appeal on words' memorability

Positive emotional responses triggered by pleasant experiences can aid memorization ability in humans. However, little is known about the effect of aesthetically pleasing experiences on linguistic memory. To experimentally investigate whether aesthetic appeal promotes word memorability, study participants rated a set of artificial words on their aesthetic appeal and were asked to actively memorize them. In line with the predictions, higher-rated words were significantly likelier to be recollected and, interestingly, tended to contain similar patterns of phonemes. This suggests that phonemes contain an inherent aesthetic value and that linguistic memorization is aided by the presence of such aesthetically appealing sound patterns. This encourages further exploration of the effect of aesthetic perception on linguistic processing and allows for more objective approaches to assessing languages’ general appeal. Additionally, the results might have implications for the marketing industry where they allow for more efficient marketing strategies directly affecting their audience’s memory

Do I trust you more if you speak like me?

We trust ingroups more than outgroups (Balliet et al. 2014, Psychological Bulletin), but to correctly identify group members we need reliable markers of group membership (Cohen 2012, Current Anthropology). Artificial language experiments show that linguistic tags can serve as such group markers (Roberts 2013, Language and Linguistics Compass). We now tested whether sharing a language also promotes trust, in comparison to other physical and cultural ingroup markers. We created an online alien game in which participants assumed the identity of an alien and played a simultaneous trust game (Berg et al. 1995, Games and Economic Behavior) with two other aliens exhibiting the ingroup versus outgroup marker types (artificial languages, body parts, costumes). GLM analyses showed that participants significantly entrusted aliens sharing their own social marker with more money, independently of marker type. Thus, a considerable number of people trusted those who spoke or looked like themselves more

Non-native speaker pause patterns closely correspond to those of native speakers at different speech rates.

When speaking a foreign language, non-native speakers can typically be readily identified by their accents. But which aspects of the speech signal determine such accents? Speech pauses occur in all languages but may nonetheless vary in different languages with regard to their duration, number or positions in the speech stream, and therefore are one potential contributor to foreign speech production. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate whether non-native speakers pause 'with a foreign accent'. We recorded native English speakers and non-native speakers of German or Serbo-Croatian with excellent English reading out an English text at three different speech rates, and analyzed their vocal output in terms of number, duration and location of pauses. Overall, all non-native speakers were identified by native raters as having non-native accents, but native and non-native speakers made pauses that were similarly long, and had similar ratios of pause time compared to total speaking time. Furthermore, all speakers changed their pausing behavior similarly at different speech rates. The only clear difference between native and non-native speakers was that the latter made more pauses than the native speakers. Thus, overall, pause patterns contributed little to the acoustic characteristics of speakers' non-native accents, when reading aloud. Non-native pause patterns might be acquired more easily than other aspects of pronunciation because pauses are perceptually salient and producing pauses is easy. Alternatively, general cognitive processing mechanisms such as attention, planning or memory may constrain pausing behavior, allowing speakers to transfer their native pause patterns to a second language without significant deviation. We conclude that pauses make a relatively minor contribution to the acoustic characteristics of non-native accents

Aesthetic perception of prosodic patterns as a factor in speech segmentation

This study addresses the hypothesis that the aesthetic appeal of linguistic features may influence their learnability and in turn their stability in a language. Focusing on prosodic patterns, we investigated the crucial baseline assumption that linguistic features like stress affect aesthetic appeal. Listeners’ liking, beauty and naturalness ratings of isochronous words and words with initially, medially or finally lengthened or shortened syllables revealed that, indeed, these patterns differed in their aesthetic appeal. Interestingly, the aesthetic appeal of prosodic patterns corresponded to their effectiveness for speech segmentation in other experiments, indicating a potential connection between aesthetics and language learning and opening up avenues for further research on the role of aesthetics in language acquisition and change

Speech pause length predicts the attribution of willingness to help in native and non-native speakers

Speech pauses between conversational turns are crucial for assessing conversation partners’ cognitive states, such as their willingness to grant requests: Overall, speakers making longer pauses are regarded as less willing to comply with requests. We experimentally tested if the interpretation of pause length was mediated by the accent of interactants, in particular native versus non-native accents. In line with our prediction, in a rating task, participants judged non-native speakers to be equally willing to grant requests, irrespective of their inter-turn pause durations, whereas native speakers making long pauses were regarded as less willing than those making short pauses. This indicates that listeners interpret long pauses by non-native speakers as the result of prolonged cognitive processing needed for planning an answer in a non-native language rather than of a lack of willingness. This may have important implications for intercultural communication settings where topics are negotiated between native and non-native speakers

The relationship between non-verbal alignment and cooperativeness in a game theory-based TV show

Throughout evolutionary history, and in everyday lives, it has been a crucial task to identify good and reliable cooperation partners. A good way of assessing potential partners’ quality and willingness is to engage in conversation with them. We investigated if non-verbal behaviours during such conversations can be reliable indicators of interactants’ cooperativeness – in contrast to the semantic content of utterances that can be easily faked. Specifically, we predicted that interactants who align in their use of non-verbal behaviours would also act more cooperatively in other tasks beyond the conversation. To test this, we analyzed gestures in the British TV game show Golden Balls, where contestants discussed and faced a game-theoretic decision to split or steal a monetary prize. Results suggest that individuals choosing to split indeed align their non-verbal behaviours more than those choosing to steal. This implies that subtle movements can serve as reliable indicators of trustworthy cooperation partners

Does linguistic alignment promote cooperation?

Linguistic similarities increase cooperative behavior between people, while linguistic differences can reduce cooperativeness, and even promote aversion towards outsiders. This may not only be true for sharing the same native language, but also for more subtle similarities such as using similar syntactic constructions. In our experiment, participants communicated with two interaction partners (which were in fact standardized chat bots), one of which syntactically aligned their language with the participants and one of which didn’t. Afterwards, participants decided with which of the two partners they would like to play a cooperation game that determined the financial bonus that they would receive for participation. Against our predictions, linguistically aligned communication partners were not preferred as cooperation partners over non-aligned communication partners. This suggests that formal linguistic similarity may be less relevant for the outcome of negotiations than previously expected, and has real-life implications for conflict resolution, especially in intercultural communication settings